As Enflame Technology gears up for a 6.12 billion yuan (US$910.3 million) initial public offering on Shanghai’s Star Market, the Chinese artificial intelligence chipmaker must convince investors that its specialised chip strategy can withstand fierce competition from Huawei Technologies and other domestic rivals, while reducing its heavy revenue dependence on major backer Tencent Holdings.
Online and offline subscriptions open on Wednesday, after the Shanghai-based start-up announced on Monday that it would issue 43.04 million shares at 142.18 yuan (US$21.15) apiece.
The debut will cap a historic public fundraising wave by China’s “four little dragons” of AI chips – Enflame, Moore Threads, Biren Technology and MetaX Integrated Circuits – as domestic players race to scale production amid export curbs by the United States on advanced Nvidia hardware.
Moore Threads led the parade with an 8 billion yuan Star Market debut in December, followed by MetaX and Biren, which raised 4.2 billion yuan late last year and HK$7 billion (US$897 million) earlier this year, respectively.
However, while the sector is benefiting from Beijing’s push for technological self-sufficiency and a nationwide buildout of AI infrastructure, Enflame faces some distinct strategic hurdles.
Chief among them is its product road map. Unlike Nvidia and its three domestic peers – which focus on general-purpose graphics processing units (GPUs) capable of handling a wide range of workflows – Enflame has staked its future on domain-specific architecture (DSA).
As an advanced evolution of application-specific integrated circuits, DSA is designed to maximise computing efficiency for targeted tasks such as AI inference.